Jesus's Family Tree (part 1)

Matthew 1:1-2

CNN reporter Anderson Cooper decided to do research into his genealogy. He was excited about what he might learn until he came to the truth. Some of his ancestors had owned slaves. Cooper went on the air and apologized for the sins of his family. The act was pointless because it changed nothing. He was neither the offending party, nor the offended party. Also, he found out that he is just like all of us. If we look into our family tree, we will all find people we are not proud of. Even Jesus had some characters in His lineage.

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The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: 2 Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.

Matthew 1:1-2

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Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah (and his brothers), how bad could this be, right? Well...right out of the gate we start pretty rough. Abraham was the son of a man named Terah. Joshua said of Terah, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel: Your fathers, including Terah, on the other side of the river in old times; and they served other gods" (Joshua 24:2). Abraham's family worshipped pagan gods before God called them out of Ur of the Chaldees (Iraq).

Once God called Abraham, it took him a while to obey. He went as far as Haran (Turkey). Over a decade later, he made his way into Canaan. While there, on two occasions he left Canaan. He told the rulers that Sarai, his wife, was his sister. In both cases, he was asked to leave because his lie was found out.

Not much is said about Isaac except that when it came to his two sons, he obeyed tradition over God. This led to trickery and division in the family. Jacob stole Esau's blessing and birthright. As a result, Jacob had to flee for his life. It would be over 20 years before Isaac and Esau saw Jacob again.

There is so much to say about Jacob. He stole from his brother and stole from his father-in-law. He favored one wife over another, which led to family strife. He favored one son over the others, which led to family strife. Jacob seemed to always be at the center of family controversy.

Finally, there is Judah. When the brothers of Joseph were planning on killing him, Judah had the idea to sell him rather than kill him. After all, this way they would get rid of him and make money. Judah also neglected to provide a son to marry his oldest son's widow. Instead he left her in mourning. Tamar dressed up like a prostitute with a veil on and placed herself in Judah's path. Judah hired her and from their interaction she became pregnant. Twins were born. The oldest son's name was Pharez.

There is a lot of good that could be said about each of these men as well. I don't want to mislead anyone into thinking that they were just evil men. They were human. They made their mistakes, and all of them grew in their relationship and trust of God. However, there are certainly black marks in all of their lives as well. If God has been concerned with appearances, He would have probably written this family off already.

Father, each of the men in these verses made many mistakes. They sinned against You and caused hurt to others. Yet, You redeemed their stories. They became known as "The Patriarchs" of the nation of Israel. Just like them, we all make mistakes and sin. Help us not to judge others more harshly than we should. If we are honest, our story is just like theirs, in need of redemption.